Month: November 2016

When passion becomes motion
Stay out of the way
Watch her dive into inspiration
Push herself to reach through time and space
Just to touch the minds of many

Teachers live to teach
The job never ends when they leave the classroom
They are always trying to show you
Trying to help you learn
Life is one big lesson
And they are striving to get you
To solve a puzzle
In the little things
And you’ll wish to god
She’ll take up painting
Or accounting
Or anything else
But the fire to ignite the spark
Is too powerful a feeling
It moves her to late nights
And early mornings
And hours of overtime
And you will never have been
Her best student
But she will have been your greatest
Instructor
The only one
Who was testing you
Every day.

Across the museum
You were the the only face I saw
A marbled shadow
Smooth edges frozen
in a moment

If I had a mouth I would call to you
Say “Hey there.
You with the arms. Come hold me”
It’s been awhile since I’ve felt the the
Touch of fingers
The kiss of the chisel
And I long for somebody
Who understands

We rest in the eyes
Of those who see us
Who watch us
And talk about us
On our pedestals
But when the spectators
Leave
And we are no longer mirrors
what worth do we have
To them then?

So show me a piece of art
You cannot make with your hands

You will see this mass of material
Breathe
And together we will frame ourselves
As masterpieces

Prompt: Write a love letter to someone who has betrayed you.
What have they given you? What have they taken?

Dear You
When you said you loved me, I thought I would die. That the credits would roll, that I would end right there. Struck by lightening, in the dark. The only way to see was through your spark. Dear heart I still think of you. How you said no man would ever hurt me. How you ate those words like they were your most delicious meal. Every bite taken swallowed a part of me until I became only you. And I was gone.

I crawled back from that place. The darkness and warmth of your touch, Of your splendor, Of your charm. Unable to see where I was without your light. Fumbling for anything to grab onto, I made myself dirty on the bottom of the world, and blamed you every day for my decent, but here, my darling, is where I found myself. A jewel in the mud. A flower grown from sour soil. The sprout of me began where you ended.

Prompt: Think of the unhinged dream word of children, and even more so, adults. Think of ten titles to children’s stories which do not exist, yet. Remember many fairy tales and many contemporary children’s stories are violent and frightening, as are dreams. This need not be fluffy. You can either let your poem exist as the ten titles, or spring off and write poems for each title later.

The story of the fall
The tale of whispering pasts
The darkness that covered the world
The man with the orange face
The scream that woke the morning
The tale of the girl who could not remember
The haunting of Tinderboxes
The story of the forgotten trauma
The man who sold his daughter to wolves
The heart that could not hear the music

Prompt: Look round your house and write about something you find that’s small (about the size of your hand) in only 5 lines.Now write about something tiny (smaller than your little finger) using only 3 lines.

Bumpy edges made smooth
By skin and stone
A white meteor landing hot in my hand
Grooves finding space in the weight of
Their small whispers.

I am the smoke
I am a fable with no lesson
I am a space to put your sorrow
I am a cracked vase
I am a green eyed monster
I am jealous of everyone’s bliss
I am looking for magic everywhere
I am only finding bricks
I am building the house of my body
I am forging a tongue of steel and contradictions
I am forgetting 3 years of regrets
I am selling truth to feed my soul
I am too fat
I am too skinny
I am never happy with the mirror
I am the frame
I am not the painting
I am the paper
I am not the poem
I am showing you the best parts of me
I am giving you my worst memories
I am growing pumpkins and calling them coaches
I am not looking for Prince Charming
I am a piece of twisted time
I am never sure of where I am
I am dancing to Prince and Michael Jackson
I am dancing like someone is watching
I am watching
I am The Watcher
I am trying not to watch the show
I AM the show
I am the performer
I am hiding in plain sight
I am the spotlight
I am the shadow

Prompt: Go through old family photographs and find one of yourself, taken at least five years ago. Describe the person in the photograph what he or she did, thought, said, or hoped. How is that person like or unlike the person you are now?

The smile is fake
They all are lately
When I was 5 my mom could always tell
when I faked a smile
These days
She can’t tell the difference
Between a corpse
And her daughter.
I have been practicing normality
While I force myself into a box
Too tight to hold the flood
Inside of me
Like a dress
Two sizes too small
I fool myself into smoking
Thinking it will kills me faster
If the cigarettes burns quickly
Dear Melissa
If you survive 2012 it will be a surprise to
Everyone around you
Too caught up with the photograph
To notice what lurks beneath
The need to know
How far the spiral goes
How deep the ocean really gets
Behind your eyes.